Everything has its shelf life. Including education. The younger generation is lost in the glut of lectures and seminars. The older generation claims that any attempt to reform learning fails and worships the ‘old school’. Who to believe? The advanced youth or the experienced “veterans of labour”? In this article, we will discuss how education differs from learning. Why modern methods of mastering knowledge and skills are not effective. And what will be the learning process of the future?

What is learning?

Learning is a process through which a person gains new experience to solve certain tasks. The end product of learning is mastered knowledge and skills. It is important to understand the difference between these elements. Knowledge enables a person to solve a problem. Skills enable them to do so in the most efficient and productive way possible.

Training can be compared to a computer program with its own tasks, sequence and organisation. Inconsistent training will be ineffective, and without application — unnecessary.

In the learning process there is an object of learning — the learner, and a subject of learning – the teacher, instructor, supervisor. The learner is the party interested in acquiring knowledge and competences. The teacher is an expert in the subject of learning and an organiser of this process. A competent teacher is able to choose the most effective model of learning, based on current trends and individual characteristics of the student.

What is the difference between education and training

In primitive society, there was no profession or position of a teacher. This role was left to parents or senior members of the social group. The process was primitive: all students learnt the same skills (hunting, farming) and mastered them individually or in small groups.

Civilisations evolved and over time more specialisations were added to the world. There was a demand for more complex skills. Therefore, the learning process divided into:

  • general skills and knowledge used to form a state, culture, civilisation;
  • professional, craft skills.

A new role was formed in society – the professional teacher. His competence included storage, systematisation and transfer of knowledge to the younger generation. The teacher represented a specific activity or combined it with another profession.

With the increase in the number of specialisations, there was a demand for mass and systematic teaching. The main demand for this process came from the state and corporations. This is how the concept of education — the organisation of large-scale training aimed at the development of state or commercial organisations — came into being.

Training and education are not the same thing. The term training applies to one particular member of society and his teacher. Training is about methods of acquiring knowledge and skills on an individual basis. Education is the organisation of learning in different directions and on a large scale.

Education is standardised and lacks the notion of individual approach. Therefore, the effectiveness of mass training is always in question. For effective acquisition of knowledge and skills, there should be a subtle communication between the student and the teacher. And this is confirmed by medicine…

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How are knowledge and skills formed in the human brain?

A person acquires new knowledge and skills due to the fact that, under the influence of one or another experience, connections between nerve cells of the brain (neurons) are created or destroyed. This property of the organism is called neuroplasticity of the brain. Neuroplasticity helps humans learn, remember information, and repair damage to neural connections.

The most stable neural connections occur during repetitions of situations. The more repetitions a person performs, the more stable his or her brain’s neural network will be. However, it is not the systematic repetition of acquired information that leads to human learning, but the repetition of actions taking into account the errors of the previous iteration.

Effective error assessment requires an outside observer with a set of relevant competences, i.e. a teacher.

The teacher helps the student to understand the errors of the previous cycle of repetitions. He/she gives new data to solve them, and guides the student’s efforts in subsequent repetition cycles. Only in such a system is there a transfer of knowledge and skills, the formation of the student’s personal qualities, and an understanding of the context of the teacher’s experience.

What should learning be like?

An important factor for a pupil and a person in general is his social needs. Based on this, let us form the requirements for learning.

First of all, learning should be individualised. In order for skills and knowledge to produce results, the student needs contact with a teacher who will help from the outside to sort out mistakes and share his experience.

A person with good experience and knowledge has many chances to become an entrepreneur. Therefore, training should not only focus on acquiring professional knowledge but also on developing initiative.

It is important to understand that profession is only a tool in achieving the main goal of a person – self-actualisation. First of all, training should help a person to become happy and successful.

According to statistics, no more than 3-5% of students achieve success after training. This shows that the education system is ineffective. Effective training should guarantee 100% success of students and help them to put the learnt skills into practice.

Human psychology is organised in such a way that people do not appreciate what they got easily or for free. Impaired knowledge will not produce results. Therefore, training should be paid. At the same time, the payment system should be affordable for the student.

Given the growth of scientific and technological progress, learning should guarantee the learner’s superiority over machines or artificial intelligence.

Ultimately, learning should elevate the individual in the hierarchy of society.

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Upside-down education

In the era of dramatic increase in technological advancement, blended learning has started to be used all over the world. It is a combination of conventional academic learning with the use of modern information technology. For example, internet computer graphics, video and audio content.

The process of blended learning looks like a sequence of classroom training and electronic lectures. A good example of such learning is flipped learning or “flipped classroom”.

Flipped learning is a teaching method in which a student learns the theoretical part of the material at home, and during a face-to-face class applies the knowledge in practice under the guidance of a teacher.

To learn the theoretical part of the training use:

Podcasts — audio lectures available to students by subscription via the internet. The lectures can be downloaded to individual devices or listened to online.

Vodcasts — the same as podcasts, only instead of audio content, videos are used.

Students also receive material in the form of texts or presentations.

The flipped classroom model was invented in 2007. Two American chemistry teachers in – Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams. The teachers developed graphic lesson materials for student athletes who regularly missed class. The materials were done in PowerPoint as slides, with voice-overs and text inserts. Teachers converted the presentation to video and distributed the content online. As a result, students were able to skip classes but not miss learning. Over time, students who did not miss class began to use the materials.

Myths about flipped learning

Critics of flipped learning claim that this approach to education weakens the role of the teacher. In practice, however, the opposite is true. Because the teacher does not spend time reciting theoretical material, he or she devotes more effort to deepening, extending and consolidating the skills of their students.

Flipped learning is often identified with distance learning, but this is wrong. Face-to-face contact between student and teacher in flipped learning is mandatory. The content of their communication changes fundamentally.

Another argument used against the flipped classroom is the impossibility to instantly ask questions to the teacher. However, a competent approach to the formation of electronic lectures takes into account the experience of previous classes, and modern means of communication (messengers, video chats) allow students to ask the teacher questions without leaving home. Thus, the teacher learns together with the students and better understands his/her audience.

The future of learning

Today, the education market is overflowing with paid and free lectures, and knowledge itself has become no more expensive than water and food. Experts predict that in the next 10-20 years there will be an oversaturation of the education sphere. Formats of organising classes will change and will not resemble those held in modern schools, universities and academies. Artificial intelligence algorithms will be introduced into the learning process, and teachers will be freed from routine tasks. The scale of use of augmented and virtual reality technology will only grow.

All of the above suggests that the ways of human learning are moving to a new stage of development. Blended education is becoming not just a new format of communication between student and teacher, but an effective learning tool for the future.